Page 13 of On Fire Island

Ben screamed and jumped a good five feet in the air, flicking on the light switch as he descended. The lump screamed back.

“What the hell, Ben!” Our eighty-year-old neighbor, Shep Silver, cried out as if Ben were the intruder. Sally ran in to investigate—too little, too late.

“Jesus, Shep, you scared the crap out of me!” Ben exclaimed.

“You scared the crap out of me!” Shep hollered, placing two fingers on his racing pulse, possibly concerned, but just as possibly to be dramatic.

“What are you doing here?” Ben asked, betting on the latter.

“What amIdoing here?” Shep sat up and pushed himself back to the headboard and continued, “You nearly gave me a heart attack! This ismyhouse.”

Ben looked like he might explode, literally explode. My first thought was that the old man, whom we had bought the house from ten years earlier, had finally lost his marbles. His behavior had always been odd, but this was beyond. His wife of fifty years,Caroline, had passed away over the winter too, and if Ben was feeling this adrift after ten years of marriage, I figured Shep must be fully out to sea.

Ben took a few deep breaths and tried to set things straight, explaining in a kinder tone, “It’s not your house anymore, Shep. I bought it from you over ten summers ago. You know that. You gotta stop calling it your house.”

Houses rarely changed hands on the island, and when they did, they were usually inherited or sold to a longtime renter with the inside scoop. A house hadn’t sold to a stranger on our block in years; Ben and I were the first newcomers in a long, long while. The fact was that once you arrived on the island and planted yourself there for a few summers, it became a part of your DNA, your third arm, your fourth child, your favorite uncle. Nobody seemed to leave unless they died—and even that I’m not so sure of anymore.

Shep put on his glasses and began his protest, confident in his evidence.

“Benjamin, when you get a delivery from the market, what does it say on the box?”

Poor Ben barely answered, “ ‘Old Silver House.’ ”

“Correct. And when you run out of gas for the barbecue and order a new tank, where do you tell them to bring it?”

“The Morse house,” Ben answered with misguided confidence.

“OK. And they say?”

Ben grimaced. “ ‘Where’s that?’ ”

“And you say?”

“The old Silver house.”

Shep stood and puffed out his chest like a rooster beforepounding it with his fists. “Old Silver, old Silver house! When I’m dead and you’re dead and the next guy who owns this house gets a delivery, it will probably say the old Morse house. You’ll have your day, Ben. You hungry?”

Ben shook his head in disbelief and answered, “I am, but there’s nothing to eat. I haven’t been here in months.”

“There’s plenty,” Shep answered as Ben threw on a pair of sweatpants and grudgingly followed him to his own kitchen.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the curmudgeonly old man across the street and his beautiful wife, Caroline, with her silver hair and British accent. I was hopeful, before she unexpectedly passed away over the winter, that she would be the one to keep an eye on Ben for me. I never imagined this scenario. I knew I should feel bad for Ben, who went to such noble efforts to be alone, but I was happy that he wasn’t.

“I didn’t expect you back yet. I’ve been sleeping here for a couple of weeks, figured I would head back home when my girls visit in August—they both promised to. I’ve always liked this house better than that debacle across the street,” Shep admitted. “You know it was Caroline who wanted to build that big house—room for all the kids and the grandkids, she said—meanwhile they come out for one week, if even, and I’m alone in that big house while all of my memories are over here in this one.”

And there we had it, a hearty spoonful of Shep Silver’s somewhat warped, somewhat logical reasoning. It also didn’t help that, aside from hanging a hand-paintedlove shacksign on the front gate, Ben and I had barely changed the place since we bought it. Houses on Fire Island traditionally come with the entire contents included, and Caroline had beautiful taste. An Eames chair, a mid-century-style sectional, an antique farmer’s table, there wasno reason to replace any of it. Plus the house had good bones: a simple ranch built by an artist in the fifties, it had high ceilings, big windows to let the light in, and walls paneled in rare pecky cypress wood. Point being—it looked very much as it had when Shep had raised his family there.

And then there were the memories he spoke of, the ones from before the decades-old rift between Shep’s two daughters began. That rift prevented the Silver sisters from even sitting beside each other at their mother’s funeral, let alone concurrently filling Shep’s house across the street with his children and grandchildren.

I like to think we had helped fill the void for Caroline and Shep over the years, at least a little—sitting with them at the beach, enjoying cocktails or having them over for barbecues and vice versa. Typical generational divides are blurred in Fire Island, more than any other place I’ve been. Who’s to say your favorite people need to be your own age? I think it’s the way it should be.

“You’ll see soon enough, Benjamin. Your memories are all you have,” Shep warned.

Ben winced at the words he knew to be true. He sat on a stool at the kitchen island as Shep opened the fridge. It was full. Shep noticed Ben’s surprised expression and filled him in.

“No widower goes hungry in this town, I imagine. Every day the ladies bring over more and more food—I’ve named them the Brisket Brigade.” He lay the choices out on the counter.

“Mindy Shapiro’s casserole surprise. You remember her husband, Jerry? He escaped a few years back.”

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